


Please Don't Ask Me to Smile (at five in the morning).

by furies



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canonical First Meeting, F/M, Future Tense, Jossed, Post-Series, told backwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-22
Updated: 2003-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furies/pseuds/furies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You said I'd die if I had nothing to do/Put a drink in my hand and I'll talk to anything that moves." <br/>(you am i.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Ask Me to Smile (at five in the morning).

**Author's Note:**

> a response to the super-uber bordello challenge. this was the perfect chance for redemption. requirements: a canonically supported first meeting, written in the future tense, told backwards, mentioning the days of the week poem, with a title from the challenge soundtrack cd and a cocktail recipe to boot.
> 
> uber thanks to the bordellinos. august brought summer in fall, and ellen m. saw fishing wire in all the right places.

The Democratic party will have fallen on its ass. She won’t know how to react. When Sam calls she will say, “Learn to stand for something,” and hang up, surprised by her disappointment in him. In a party she hates, in a party that destroyed her dreams with calls of duty.

She will decide to leave Washington. She’ll move to New York City, where everyone seems to be a Republican in disguise. At least, a special brand of economic Republican, they liked Bartlet the way she did. Her blond hair and resume will get her into the right buildings, the right meetings. She’ll get an apartment on the Upper East Side, and one day, maybe she’ll meet Sam on the Hill. Ainsley will almost laugh thinking, _he won’t know what hit him_. Her smile and Southern manner will get her far.

New York will be the perfect place for her. She’s certain. The Republican party there fell almost as hard as she did. Everyone will be looking for a little redemption, and what better place to find it than New York, with its sparkling sidewalks and air of impatience importance, where you burned until you burnt out?

She’ll call her father from the airport. _You can’t play with devil, baby, and not expect to get burned._

She was a Republican before she was a lawyer, perhaps even before she was a daughter, but that doesn’t mean as much as it used to anymore.

*

It will be a Sunday in August. She will wake up to a headache the size of Texas.

The bells of St. James will ring as she makes her way down 8th. 10 am, the High Mass, traditional language, and she will sing hymns softly in the pews. She will lose herself in the words, finding comfort in routine. She will utter the mysteries that she still believes, “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” and she will exchange peace with her unknown neighbors. She will take communion, she will say, “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” Her hands won’t shake much.

Ainsley Hayes was going to make it to the White House. She had dreamt it since she was two years old. Always had a plan, always had something to argue about, she was used to being on the outside of the debate, going to Smith to prove a point. She was never what people expected. She could survive anything.

Anything.

She will remember ambition. She will remember being small and naive, telling Harriet and Bruce that these people might disagree with her, but they weren’t worthless. She will never stop believing it, and so she will be stuck. She made it to the White House, in a unique way, on her own terms. No one will ever be able to accuse her of making things easy.

She won’t regret anything, but something will have to change.

*

Her briefcase will be resting just inside the door where she left it the previous night. She’ll think about kicking it, chooses to ignore it instead. She will grab a Fresca and sit on her bed. The sheets will be pink, small flowers, her clothes strewn across the comforter, a result of her incapability to choose an outfit in the morning.

"I've always hated Mondays," she will say, and her eyes will crinkle slightly. Saturday’s child works hard for a living, and she’s not Monday’s girl anymore, braiding her hair for bed.

Now, she will know this is her life.

Eating oatmeal at three a.m. because her mother said it would stick to her bones. An empty bed. She'll think about laughing because she fucked a Democrat, and the sex was great, and it wasn't Sam Seaborn, and she did it anyway. She’ll contemplate crying herself to sleep but discover she is too tired.

*

Five in the morning and she’ll begin to speak. She used to be afraid of silence. She will have learned its nuance. She will have grown tired of falling on deaf ears. She will have grown tired.

“I always wanted your job,” she will say, matter of fact.

“It wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all.” He will try to laugh, though everything sounds painful.

“You could always run for Senate,” she’ll say, knowing it would be political suicide, but having no other answer.

“So could you,” he will reply, and Ainsley will rub her eyes.

“At least you got somewhere.”

“We both got to the White House. Just not the way we expected.” He will chuckle, say softer, “Not the way we wanted.”

“I didn’t vote for you.” She will say it proudly, like a confession.

“I didn’t imagine that you did.”

“I just, I wanted, a nice man, which isn’t to say that you aren’t a nice man, I’m sure you are, and I know, but with everything, and after all, I am –” He will start to laugh.

“So that’s the famed Hayes syntax.”

She’ll blush and sit up straight. “I should go.” Emerging from sheets, white and pale, bones and blond hair, she won’t feel ashamed. “It was nice to finally meet you.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Ms. Hayes.” He will hesitate as she picks up her clothes. “They didn’t bet on you being such a good lawyer. All they saw was your blond hair. It’s all we all saw, until.” His voice will catch. “Well, they can’t take that away.” She won’t look back at him, leaving without another word.

Years later, she will hear that a former vice-president died in a plane crash in Texas. Because it will be so close to the election, his name will remain on the ballot. John Hoynes will be elected to the Senate for the state of Texas, once again.

*

Ainsley will be half way to an orgasm before she'll hear her father's voice in her head. She'll want to laugh. _I'm screwing the Democrats, Daddy, isn't that what you always told me to do?_

His hands will be rough on her breasts. She will lean into them groaning, and he will be more attentive than she imagined. His eyes will be closed, her hair falling across his chest, across his back. Momentarily she’ll feel alive, gasping air, slick sweaty skin.

He will fuck her three different ways, and she will beg him not to stop. Her hands won’t be able to stop, to stop touching him, to stop touching her, to stop stop stop, no, she never never wants to stop.

Everything will throb. She will bite his neck, his earlobes, her fingers raking his shoulder blades. She will leave bruises. His response will be immediate, rolling on top of her, she almost won’t be able to breathe but she’ll say again, again, “harder, please, harder.” Her hands will be pressed against the wall. He will never say her name. She goes down on him all the same.

She won’t feel dirty, not a bit.

He won’t kiss her. She won’t mind, not a bit.

After she will find herself in his bathroom, vomiting into his toilet. He will hold her hair while her body heaves, will hand her a glass of water, will hold her silently while she cries.

*

She's going to be sick tomorrow, but she doesn't care. "A Five in the Morning, please, Steve," she’ll say, after two vodka tonics and a dirty martini. She’ll have stopped drinking Pink Squirrels years ago. Steve will look at her strangely. She’ll laugh in response and announce, "Something new, something new and shiny and new, is beginning right now. Now!" She’ll gesture for effect, and Steve will turn his back to her.

When she gets home, she will practice lying in the bathroom mirror.

While she is contemplating this, someone will sit down next to her. "Five A.M. already?” and Ainsley will turn so quickly her elbow will smash into the bar.

"You." She'll say, trying to hide her surprise, gasping all the same, jumping down off her stool and trying to smooth her hair. "Why are you here?"

"So this means we won't be requiring an introduction?" She'll remind herself that she never really liked Democrats. “I come here to smoke.” He’ll reach across her for an ashtray. Her nose will wrinkle in disgust.

Steve will take the opportunity to place a large glass on the bar. "One Five in the Morning, sweetheart. I hope you know what you are doing." She will glare at him.

“I have, I’ll have you know, I have a full grown body here, a woman’s body, here, and I think I can take care of myself, you know. I know these things. I know. These are things that I know.”

Steve will leave her, smirking, and she's going to remember never to come back here again.

"Potent beverage, there, eh? I'm surprised, I expected a wine spritzer from you, Ainsley." He will order a club soda. Her eyes will roll, but she will sit down again. The alcohol will look too good to resist. She won't have anything left to lose, anyway.

"Rum, gin, vodka, tequila, triple sec, o-jay, sour mix." She'll gulp through her red straw, reciting in monotone.

"That bad of a day, huh?" He’ll sound surprisingly sympathetic. Nothing like she expected. Alcohol will be shooting straight into Ainsley's blood.

“You have no idea.” He will look at her strangely. She’ll be used to that look by now. She will hate it nonetheless. “My job isn’t exactly something you dream about.”

“I lecture once a week to kids at Georgetown who are only there because either their fathers paid for them to be there or they have delusional dreams of power.”

“I heard you were writing a book,” she will say, proving that there are things she still knows.

“Who isn’t writing a book?”

“I always thought I would have something to do. A path. A plan. This career. And now, I think it’s safe to say now that’s all gone.”

He will look at her sadly. “You shouldn’t drink so much,” and she misses everything so, so badly.

She will try to smile, and then put her hand on his thigh. His eyes won’t widen, won’t look startled. All she will want will be touch, for him to touch her. He won’t brush her off. The last thing she'll remember thinking is, _what is this?_

*

The minute she walks in her door, she will turn around and walk out. There is nothing home-like about this Washington apartment, there is nothing Ainsley-like about it, except for the cans of Fresca in the fridge. Her diet would be unrecognizable to those that knew her, before, back in my prime, and she almost laughs because she’s not yet forty and she’s already at a dead end.

It will be a dark autumn night, falling leaves and damp sidewalks. She will leave her car on the curb and walk to the nearest bar.

Even now, she believes in personal responsibility.

Her phone will ring, startling her.

“Hello?”

“My favorite feminist! How’s the fine weather in our Nation’s Capital?” Her face will break out in a smile.

“Balmy as usual. Please tell me you aren’t going to give me the weather report. I don’t need to know what you do to amuse yourself, really.”

“And what does a nice young Republican like yourself do for amusement on a Saturday night?”

“Well, I’m on my way to a bar, where I will get remarkably drunk, after which I will pick up the Republican I meet, and take him home to practice the new tantric sex methods I learned last week at the Young Republican convention.”

“You know, how to turn a guy on there, Republican or not. But you’re still unwilling to cross party lines? I thought you’d grown there, Ainsley. There’s a whole world yet to be discovered.”

“You have a lot to learn, Sammy boy.” She will laugh, honestly. “So what Republican opinion do you want me to defend tonight?”

“Tell me, please, why everyone wants to go around ‘protecting marriage’ when divorce rates are sky-rocketing?”

“Doesn’t that mean that we should be protecting marriage?”

“You hate homosexuals! And, and, women with ambition!”

“We don’t hate homosexuals, Sam. We don’t hate women. But you know, the Catholic church has pretty much the same stance that the Republican party does on these issues. Homosexual sex: Bad. Women in the clergy: bad bad bad. Yet your dear President Bartlet managed to make it work for him. Why don’t you trust us to be able to make the same decision?”

“Because they are acting out of fear instead of knowledge. They act in their own best interest and say, ‘Screw you’ to the rest of America. ‘As long as I’m happy!’”

“Forgive me, Sam, for having enough faith in people to think they know best how to make themselves happy. Because let’s face it, with less than half of America even voting, we must be doing a really great job of representing their interests.”

“You don’t even trust women to choose how to deal with their own bodies!”

“You always come back to abortion because it’s all you have, isn’t it?” She will sigh dramatically, slipping backwards through time. Closing her eyes, it will almost be the same.

“You don’t trust people who have guns. You don’t trust people to be smart enough to distinguish between church and state and a good education. You don’t trust the people Sam, and you claim to be the party of the people. No wonder you’re falling apart. ‘Those selfish Republicans,’ you think, ‘if only they would stop harping on that right-wing Protestant rhetoric.’”

“I’m Episcopalian.”

“That’s great. I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m glad to hear you haven’t changed.” The rhythm of easy banter will fall away, and she will remember where she is.

“You have no idea, Sam, no idea.” He will hear something in her voice.

“When I’m in town again, dinner? Session starts in two weeks.”

“Sure. That sounds great.” She will try to smile and then remember he can’t see her anyway.

The bar will have neon lights in the windows, calling her, and when Sam calls a few weeks later, she will forget to return his calls.

*

In her car, stuck at a stoplight on I, she will recite poetry. _Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe._ She will remember playing a game with her classmates, during recess in North Carolina, when the humidity prevented any quick movements. Ainsley was always Monday's child, which even now she will resent. But with her blond hair and big eyes, she never looked as if she could be anything else.

Immediately she will think of Sam, the one person that could take Monday away from her. Yet, at that moment, waiting for the light to change, Ainsley will say, "Saturday's child works hard for a living," and she'll understand.

She'll realize she needs to stop thinking about Sam Seaborn and the rest of the White House staff. The former-White House staff. Herself included. Only they, well. Sam left before any of them, and that was when she was truly forgotten, a Republican relic stored in the basement, dusted off and brought upstairs for special displays of bi-partisanship. They all have flourished. But then again, then again they were part of the party that was in power, while she is seen as opportunistic and ambitious. Rated on the same scale as Mandy Hampton and Ann Stark, consultants who believed only in winning.

Sam will still call her, every week or so, she imagines her name is penciled in somewhere in his Fil-o-fax, and she will laugh because Sam Seaborn represents California’s 47th, one of the last great Republican strongholds. He will ask how she is doing, and then it will be a question of policy, or how he doesn’t understand how Republicans can feel this way. Sometimes she will grow tired of him acting as if she only believes things because they are Republican issues. Ainsley is an educated woman. She will have made all her decisions.

Once the poster child for women Republicans, she cherished her role. She dreamt of one day running for office, Senator Hayes from North Carolina, moving on to become the first female Vice-President in history. She believed. She is going to realize, one day, that nothing is truly over. But she believed, and she still does, and the interest is still running up on that debt.

Sam only calls her because he trusts her. She won’t be willing to let that go.

*

It will have been a year ago that the Democratic presidential candidate lost the election, and irony of ironies, Ainsley found herself without a job. She didn't, of course, vote for John Hoynes, whom she still hasn't met, despite a job tenure of six years in the White House Counsel’s Office.

Her mother will call one day to tell Ainsley that the RNC has an opening for a legal consultant. The RNC that still thinks she sold her soul to the devil, that she assisted a lying Democratic president in getting the chance to be reelected, the chance for four more years. A perfect opportunity for sabotage, Cliff Calley and Ainsley Hayes will never work in a predominant position for the Republican party. Lillienfield and the rest will make sure of that. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had failed. But Ainsley was no slouch. She didn’t, she doesn’t, fail.

Ainsley will smile into the phone and say, "Thanks, Mom. I have to get back to work, but tell Daddy I love him." She will hang up before she can hear the response. Her father isn't going to stop thinking "I told you so," and Ainsley isn't going to go home. She will find herself on the outskirts, a Republican in Democratic clothing, a Democrat with Republican hair.

Ainsley will leave her office, this time in the Department of Justice, which will have windows and a working air system. Her title will be a step up, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy.

She will be hidden. As the token White House Republican she was visible. She had the ear of an administration. Now, she will have almost been discarded. Ironic, the reversal there. She will try not to think of it much.

She was, is, and will be, loyal to the job. To the office. To the value of that things represent. But there will be no sense of pride, no warm thrill in her belly when she thought of where she worked. No sense of duty. She will have made a major miscalculation: loyalty to the Party, above all.

But she will be surviving. She will walk out the front door and no one will notice her go. She will throw her briefcase on the passenger seat, slam the door, and reverse without checking her rearview mirror.

She will have made her decisions, and she will be living with them.


End file.
